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Park sang joon Posted 10 years ago
Grammar
The analyses of a text #4
The narrator recalls his adolescence.
Peggotty, the narator's old nurse's niece Em'ly fled with the narrator's best friend Steerforth to somewhere on the day when Peggotty's husband's funeral was held , leaving her fiance, her cousin Ham.
Mr. Peggotty, Peggoty's elder brother came to London with the narrator to seek for his niece the day after next.
Mr. Peggotty told him to arrange for him to meet Steerforth' mother and he wrote her a letter for the appointment.
And they visited Steerforth's house the next day and now Mr. Peggotty is talking to Steerforth's mother.
..............................
'What compensation can you make to ME for opening such a pit between me and my son? What is your love to mine? What is your separation to ours?'
Miss Dartle softly touched her, and bent down her head to whisper, but she would not hear a word.
'No, Rosa, not a word! Let the man listen to what I say! My son, who has been the object of my life, to whom its every thought has been devoted, whom I have gratified from a child in every wish, from whom I have had no separate existence since his birth, - to take up in a moment with a miserable girl, and avoid me! To repay my confidence with systematic deception, for her sake, and quit me for her! To set this wretched fancy, against his mother's claims upon his duty, love, respect, gratitude - claims that every day and hour of his life should have strengthened into ties that nothing could be proof against! Is this no injury?'
[David Copperfield by Charles Dickens]
1. I'd like to know why it is "its," not "my."
2. I'd like to know if "to take up" means "in order to take up."
3. And I'd like to know what "to repay" means.
Thank you in advance for your help.
Peggotty, the narator's old nurse's niece Em'ly fled with the narrator's best friend Steerforth to somewhere on the day when Peggotty's husband's funeral was held , leaving her fiance, her cousin Ham.
Mr. Peggotty, Peggoty's elder brother came to London with the narrator to seek for his niece the day after next.
Mr. Peggotty told him to arrange for him to meet Steerforth' mother and he wrote her a letter for the appointment.
And they visited Steerforth's house the next day and now Mr. Peggotty is talking to Steerforth's mother.
..............................
'What compensation can you make to ME for opening such a pit between me and my son? What is your love to mine? What is your separation to ours?'
Miss Dartle softly touched her, and bent down her head to whisper, but she would not hear a word.
'No, Rosa, not a word! Let the man listen to what I say! My son, who has been the object of my life, to whom its every thought has been devoted, whom I have gratified from a child in every wish, from whom I have had no separate existence since his birth, - to take up in a moment with a miserable girl, and avoid me! To repay my confidence with systematic deception, for her sake, and quit me for her! To set this wretched fancy, against his mother's claims upon his duty, love, respect, gratitude - claims that every day and hour of his life should have strengthened into ties that nothing could be proof against! Is this no injury?'
[David Copperfield by Charles Dickens]
1. I'd like to know why it is "its," not "my."
2. I'd like to know if "to take up" means "in order to take up."
3. And I'd like to know what "to repay" means.
Thank you in advance for your help.
Top answer
1. He could have said "my" but the meaning would be different. Here "its" refers to (my) life .
- 1.
- He could have said "my" but the meaning would be different.
- Here "its" refers to (my) life .
- " 2.
- No, not "in order to take up" because the sentence does not allow for that reading.
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1 Answers
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1. He could have said "my" but the meaning would be different. Here "its" refers to (my) life. Personally, I would have written it "my every thought."
2. No, not "in order to take up" because the sentence does not allow for that reading. If Dickens had said "He left me to take up with that girl," then "in order to take up with" would be a fair reading. To reword the sentence:
2. No, not "in order to take up" because the sentence does not allow for that reading. If Dickens had said "He left me to take up with that girl," then "in order to take up with" would be a fair reading. To reword the sentence:
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